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Honored Contributor
Posts: 9,739
Registered: ‎05-19-2012

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

[ Edited ]

goldens,

 

You hope they do but they don't.  Youth.

 

I know everyone -- including me -- is tiring of my memories from 50 years ago when I spent six months in Europe.  Three months in Italy and three months in Greece.

 

My intention was to get a job in Rome, as I've written umpteen times before, but there was no luck for good and worthwhile employment.  Maybe I was half-hearted in my attempts.  Who knows.

 

Anyway, when I was in Venice I did something so critically foolish that I scare myself today when I think about it.  I was at an indoor restaurant, eating alone, having arrived maybe a couple nights before.  (I did my holiday on my own, except in Greece, when  I met up at various times with my estranged husband and his family.)

 

Well, an Italian guy in the next booth started singing "Strangers in the Night" and looking my way.  I have a big sense of humor, and his pitch to get to know me made me break out laughing.  His name was Franco.

 

He joined me in my booth and we chatted easily, and then he offered to show me Venice.  Mind you, night had fallen by the time we emerged from the restaurant. 

 

After a while he asked if I minded if we visited his very good friend who lived in a gloriously beautiful home, on a canal, of course. The home looked grand.  I went in.

 

It was the '60s.  People hitchhiked and trusted strangers like crazy.  

 

Yes, I foolishly went in, and I was introduced to his friend and his elderly mother.  Both looked like aristocrats and the home had the rich decorations dripping all over as you commonly see in Venice.  Both the mother and son were two of the whitest-skinned people I have ever seen in my life!   Suddenly, a shot of fear ripped through me.

 

Not that I thought the aged mother was a degenerate of sorts, but I suddenly realized that I was at the mercy of two strange men in this home.  I immediately asked to leave, and thank the Lord, there were no problems.

 

Once I got out that door I breathed a huge sigh of relief and thanked God and my lucky stars.  What was I thinking?  What a fool I was. 

 

Maybe everyone was sane and just being hospitable, but if they had not been, I could have been chopped up and dropped into a canal.  No one would have known for days that I was missing.  Very stupid move on my part.  Never again.  No wonder I'm one of the few people in the world who is not in love with Venice.    

 

[Have to amend my being alone statement.  On the plane over to Greece, I met a woman from New York who was getting off in Rome.  For those who remember it, it was the TWA run of Rome-Athens-Tel Aviv out of JFK.  We became fast friends, and she was heading to Florence, where she was joining up with a group of Jewish-American ex-pats who lived full-time there.  I stayed with her for a month in Florence.  It was the '60s, as I said.]

Regular Contributor
Posts: 209
Registered: ‎08-08-2017

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

 

"They never think something bad could happen to them, she should had  more sense".

 

Really goldensrbest & others, blame the victum? A 23 year old college student? Were you ever young?

 

Tragic & sad ending.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 37,847
Registered: ‎06-11-2011

Re: Missing University of Utah Student


@Shepherd wrote:

 

"They never think something bad could happen to them, she should had  more sense".

 

Really goldensrbest & others, blame the victum? A 23 year old college student? Were you ever young?

 

Tragic & sad ending.


@Shepherd   I didn't read that post as blaming the victim at all.   I agree the young lady should have had more sense not to meet a guy in a park in the middle of the night (whether she knew him or not).  That doesn't mean she asked for or  deserved to be killed.  I take it to mean if she had exercised better judgment, she'd probably still be alive.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 9,721
Registered: ‎10-01-2013

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

Paying the ultimate price for poor choices. In this day and age you need to give serious thought to the motives of people. Her family must be devasted.

Respected Contributor
Posts: 4,986
Registered: ‎10-04-2015

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

Absolutely heartbreaking what that monster did.

Thankful for the neighbors that noticed the suspicious activity and reported it...

 

Neighbors reported they saw Ajayi burning something in his backyard with gasoline on June 17 and 18, police said. An investigation of the property found an area that had been freshly dug, the same area that neighbors reported seeing the fire.

 

 A contractor reported that he was approached by an individual who owns the home searched, now believed to be Ajayi, to build a soundproof room in the home. “He slowly added on other requests, like building a secret door and adding hooks to the wall." The contractor said that the person also asked the construction be completed “before his girlfriend got back into town.”

"Weirded out" by the request, he turned the person [ Ajayi ] down.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 37,847
Registered: ‎06-11-2011

Re: Missing University of Utah Student


@MorningLover wrote:

Absolutely heartbreaking what that monster did.

Thankful for the neighbors that noticed the suspicious activity and reported it...

 

Neighbors reported they saw Ajayi burning something in his backyard with gasoline on June 17 and 18, police said. An investigation of the property found an area that had been freshly dug, the same area that neighbors reported seeing the fire.

 

 A contractor reported that he was approached by an individual who owns the home searched, now believed to be Ajayi, to build a soundproof room in the home. “He slowly added on other requests, like building a secret door and adding hooks to the wall." The contractor said that the person also asked the construction be completed “before his girlfriend got back into town.”

"Weirded out" by the request, he turned the person [ Ajayi ] down.


Yes, that smelled really bad (which burning flesh does, according to, for example,  people who smelled those burned in German concentration camps).

Honored Contributor
Posts: 14,869
Registered: ‎09-08-2010

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

I'm sorry to hear about his. I'm just now catching up with the story. I feel so bad for her family.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 17,739
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

I am sorry that this lifestyle has been glamorized. It is the same ugly business ,it always has been. Dressing it up ,and claiming it is nothing more than a mutually  beneficial arrangement, insults the people who are trafficked this way. God rest her soul..her poor family.

Regular Contributor
Posts: 209
Registered: ‎08-08-2017

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

Lifestyle? What lifestyle? Perhaps I'm missing some of the story. Mackenzie was a college student.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 17,739
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: Missing University of Utah Student

The sugar baby lifestyle